1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to systems, methods and computer programs for mobile payment transactions low-cost barcode or radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.
2. Related Art
In today's technological environment, electronic communications mechanisms can be classified as either Person-to-Person (P2P), Unidirectional, Annotated, Social, Bulletin Board or Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications. This classification system is based on the type of participants in the communications and usage patterns.
The above-described mechanisms of electronic communications, while they allow for rapid on-line/electronic communications, all have one deficiency. That deficiency is that they do not allow themselves to be associated with a physical (i.e., real world, non-virtual) context. For example, it would be very valuable to attach a voice message to a (tangible) gift, whereby the recipient of the gift can then easily retrieve the message when receiving the gift. Current mechanisms of sending messages with a gift include a printed or written communication in the form of a short note or a greeting card. There is no “electronic” way to “attach” a message or transaction or information about an associated transaction with the physical context. While certain “clumsy” mechanisms can be thought of—such as sending an audio tape or player with the gift or writing a note containing a URL where an electronic message may be downloaded—there is no simple and elegant way to exchange rich electronic messages that can be tied to physical world contexts.
The above example points to a need for contextual communications where electronic messages and associated transactions or other data can be attached or affixed to physical, real-world objects. Thus, Applicants' U.S. Pat. No. 8,532,624 titled, “System And Method For Storing And Retrieving Multimedia Messages On Low-Cost Tags In Order To Facilitate Contextual Communications,” filed on Apr. 9, 2008 (the “624 patent”), Applicants' U.S. Pat. No. 8,238,828 titled, “System and Method for Multimedia Storing and Retrieval Using Low-Cost Tags as Virtual Storage Mediums,” filed on Sep. 8, 2009, and Applicants' U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/541,124 titled “Using Low-Cost Tags as a Virtual Storage Medium For Multimedia Information,” filed Jul. 3, 2012, each now incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, disclosed systems, method and computer program products for the storing and retrieving of multimedia messages on low-cost tags, such as barcode and RFID tags, thereby facilitating contextual communications where such messages can be attached to physical, real-world objects.
The system disclosed in, for example, the '624 patent, with its Universally Unique Identifier—(UUID) based identifier printed on the tags, relies on a communications network to resolve what needs to be done when a tag is scanned by a mobile telephone equipped with appropriate software and sensors for reading and writing messages onto the tags. This implies having a relationship between the end user and the service provider of the contextual messaging software and, a priori, information about the application, UUID-based tag identifiers and configuration of meta data information and relationship between them on the network.
Current retail transactions are largely closed loop relying on expensive point of sale (POS) systems. Payment within retailers are typically carried out via cash, credit or debit cards. Products are labeled with barcodes or other machine readable labels understandable by proprietary POS readers. Because many retailers are selective about the types of payments they accept and there is an ever increasing number of payment processors (including, but not limited to PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, retailer-specific accounts, and the like), consumers are forced to carry several cards within their physical wallet. Despite built-in protections, the payments industry is besieged with several security issues including stolen card numbers, theft and fraud.
In addition to the above issues, retailers and, more broadly, the payments industry at large faces a plethora of concerns related to ease of use, flexibility, security and alternative payments types. From a security perspective, most of the existing systems transmit credit and debit card transactions through merchant networks. The safety of merchant premises and networks is becoming a significant concern, as demonstrated in certain high profile retail card data theft in United States. Mobile and portable (away from POS such as restaurant tables) often require cards to be carried by a service agent which is prone to security risks.
Flexibility is difficult because point of sale systems are often expensive, proprietary and difficult to modify to accept new payment mechanisms such as NFC based payments. This is a widespread issue because virtually any vendor that desires to accept non-cash payments must have a point of sale system or software with card readers and printers. Many recent advances in QR code based mobile payments still require POS integration and ability to read QR codes from one display screen. These require expensive changes to POS systems and not very user friendly.
Emerging forms of payments such as micro transactions that deal with small purchase amounts are expensive to be handled through traditional credit card transactions.
Current self-checkout systems are not easy for consumers to use due to proprietary nature of the barcoded information and inability to easily identify and match payments to individual products.
Given the foregoing, what are now needed are methods and computer program products for using low-cost barcode or RFID tags to facilitate purchasing transactions, without requiring an expensive POS system.